Gasp! We finally got our new kitchen cabinets in! When we moved into our new apartment a few months ago, we knew we were going to have to do something about the lack of counter space. There was one little IKEA sideboard and one tiny little ledge near the sink that turned cooking into a bit of…

I couldn’t find a picture before we bought this for our mini-kitchen-cabinets in progress (more on this soon! It’s been hectic.) but here is what an IKEA Karlby walnut + particleboard countertop looks like on the inside: This is the countertop (picture from IKEA website): And here’s the difference before and after learning to cut it…

My sister Emma made another fab documentation video! This time for my mini mint tin watercolors. I also have an Instructable here in case you like text/photo instructions. It pairs well with this 3D printable cap to make a tiny waterbrush even tinier. If you want a watercolor tin, Emma is going to be making some to sell – ping me…

Woops! Weird things happen sometimes when you try to draw with code. Which is more than half the fun! I was sad to learn that this print was no longer for sale after hunting for it in several art supply stores. Then I thought it would be fun to muck around in Processing a bit.…

My sister Emma has a Monster High themed Youtube channel where she does unboxing and tutorial videos. It’s a pretty awesome continuation of the sorts of storytelling games we used to play together as kids. She has always brought life to characters in this incredible way. Nowadays she is both working on her own characters and story worlds as a…

Here’s a wee reference book for Processing, with half blank pages to write in your own things-to-remember. The cover is a procedurally generated composition book (written in Processing, of course!) Link to download here. To make one, print double sided on one letter sized sheet of paper, cut out doubled pages along lines, stack and fold all in…

I suppose this isn’t a hack since this IKEA piece is already made of unfinished wood ready to be decorated, but it does use only IKEA parts! I had to give away my dresser after our recent move since it wouldn’t fit in our new space. I replaced it with a tall, narrow chest of drawers from IKEA…

Or: Choose joy over convenience. I’m in the midst of unpacking and quarter grading so this week’s post shall be brief. A huge life lesson that it took me too long to learn: if where you live is making you miserable, move. Do it as soon as you can. I know it’s a huge privilege to be able to,…

An assortment of things from my first trip to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View (with apologies for the photo quality). Mechanical Card Punch machine: I love that they had one you could play with! The mechanism is surprisingly smooth and it required little pressure to make perfect-looking holes. A reference to one of the…

Last night I went to Code for San Francisco‘s weekly Civic Hack Night. I wanted to learn more about some of the projects and share what I learned with my class. My students are currently researching Open Source projects to contribute to as part of a “Collaborative Computing” unit. I had looked at some of C4SF’s projects online and…